Latest NZ Poll Results A Wake Up Call

The February 2008 New Zeraland Fairfax Media- Nielson
poll out today with the unnecessarily emotive header Labour poll-axed - New
Zealand, world, sport, business & entertainment news on
Stuff.co.nz has National Opposition at 55% - the current
Labour Government 32% - with the Prime Minister Helen Clarks
support having slumped to 29% and the National Party Leader
now at 44%. Under the New Zealand Mixed Member Proportional
(MMP) system, this poll result would indicate that National
could govern alone with 69 seats leaving Labour on 40 within
the 123 seat House.

As the old
saying goes in politics “Its governments that lose
elections – not oppositions that win them” – and with
these latest poll results (which have been building for
quite some time now) – understandably, we are now in the
“rats abandoning the sinking ship” phase – from both
inside the Labour Party and outside – with the media
turning on the government. The latter had to a large extent
earlier been the governments greatest “cheerleaders” –
but with the change in public sentiment are “re assessing
their positions”.

The “loss of faith”
currently going on within the ranks of the civil service
with the decline in the Governments fortunes – could be
described as rather amusing. Much of the earlier advice they
had provided the Government - in areas such as housing
affordability - could at best be described as “woeful”
– as I outlined within my December 2007 Open Letter to Housing
Minister .

This illustrates the urgent need
for focus on policy development - to substantially enhance
the ethical and general performance standards of the public
service at central, regional and local government levels in
New Zealand. Over recent years - it has regrettably become
an ill disciplined “Parkinsons Law on Prozac” exercise.
A small country such as New Zealand’s - with a tiny
population of just 4.2 million (and a GDP of one third the
size of the cities of Houston or Dallas Fort Worth for
example) has become “suffocatingly bureaucratized”.

The National Party could not be rated a “stellar
performer” on the policy development front – and one of
the few areas it has made some progress, is on the issue of
“housing affordability” – with a little external
encouragement – as this August 2007 speech by its Leader
John Key - NZ National Party Leader - Leader of
the Opposition illustrates. He spoke in much the same
vein to National Party members at their Conference
subsequently

The media has yet to report on it
adequately – but the reality is that most Kiwis (rightly
or wrongly) are “feeling poorer”, with Westpac Bank
indicating recently that during 2007 household debt climbed
a further $19 billion to $166 billion or 13%. Even though
real estate transaction volumes have fallen away quite
dramatically and new housing construction is now beginning
to weaken – the mortgage debt financing pressures required
to participate in a grossly inflated housing market as
illustrated in the latest Demographia Survey , place enormous financial loads on
households.

The former Australian Liberal Government
learnt this to its cost, at the last Federal election as
illustrated by the December 2007 research commissioned by
the Sydney Morning Herald from Fitch Ratings as outlined
within this article Fear of losing
homes drove Labor win - National - smh.com.au . It is
the “bread and butter” issues that really concern
people.

These latest poll results will hopefully
stimulate all political parties to develop sound policies
that are in the wider public interest. It is to be hoped too
- going forward - that the wider public and media - do their
job in demanding “policy performance” across the
political spectrum. The politicians (at all levels) are our
“representatives” and public officials are the
“servants of the public” – and they should never be
allowed to forget it.

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